Just A Very Lonely Man
by Number1PixarFan
Summary: On the anniversary of Mary's death, Shawn and Gus sit down to watch his video diaries in full. They end up learning some things about their old friend that shock and disturb them greatly. Oneshot. Promised Land shipping!


**A/N: Hooray! More Yang/Mary fanfic (although Yang's not really in this one so much)! And this time, Shawn and Gus are there, too! It's my first time writing Shawn and Gus, so hopefully I emulated the style of their banter adequately.**

**I read on Tumblr that there was a deleted scene where Mary actually says/implies via video diary that he has a crush on Yang. I must know if this is true. Unfortunately for me, Yang 3 in 2D seems to be the only episode of the whole series whose deleted scenes were too precious to have their copyright violated. I found a link to them on YouTube, so I know they exist, but the video had been removed. So, naturally, I have been going crazy the past few days.**

**I JUST NEED TO KNOW WHAT HE SAID. IF HE SAID ANYTHING AT ALL. Ugggghhhhh.**

**My life is not interesting, so I'm going to stop talking about it! I hope you enjoy this fic! Please R&R!**

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"_I understand that some people would prefer not to have to scrape mouse feces off a tablecloth. But that's no excuse for being rude. Needless to say, that's the last time the Macaroni Grille gets my business."_

"Shawn, what the hell are you doing?" Gus had entered the Psych office to Shawn lounging on the couch and inhaling popcorn as he watched a movie on a fifteen-year-old TV. That alone wasn't odd – Shawn could be found doing at least one of those things at any given moment. But Gus had to do a double-take nonetheless, thanks to _what _Shawn was watching. "That's not who I think it is . . . is it?"

"If you think it's Jeff Goldblum, then it is _not_ who you think it is," replied Shawn, spewing bits of popcorn-kernel spittle. "You really need to stop being so racist towards people who wear glasses, Gus."

"I can tell that's not Jeff Goldblum, Shawn . . . "

"But if you think it's our old friend Mary Lightly, you are absolutely correct." Shawn swung his legs off the couch to make room for Gus. "Come, share in my excellent discomfort. The man is so endearingly maladjusted that I want to take him out into the world and explain things to him in a _really slow voice._"

Yes, the man on the TV was Mary, dressed as strangely as ever in a neon yellow raincoat over a sweater vest despite being indoors. His pet mouse, Ben, was nestled in his hand. Gus knew Shawn had saved these tapes, but he had never expected to see him watching them. They were like mini horror movies, with the added horror of them being entirely real.

"You look confused," said Shawn. "I can't believe you didn't mark it on your handy-dandy Google calender, Gus. It's been five years down to the minute since Mary died. I think we owe him however much time it takes to watch his video diaries all the way through."

"To the minute, Shawn?"

"Okay, in about . . . seven and a half hours, yes. Precisely to the minute. Come on, Gus. He clearly wanted us to watch these."

Gus rolled his eyes. "He wanted_ you _to watch them. The guy was pretty much in love with you."

"Man, don't say it like that," said Shawn with a grimace. "Mary wasn't . . . he didn't . . . he was ain't-sexual."

"You mean asexual."

"No, Gus, _ain't_-sexual. That's what they call it when you ain't gay and you ain't straight because you're just not attracted to anyone at all."

"That's still asexual, Shawn. And how do you know that? Did he say so in the videos?"

Shawn shrugged. "No," he said. "But if he wasn't, then he really did not understand the concept of a diary. Diaries should be all, _Why are the cheerleaders such mean bitches? I hate my mom! And most of all, I wish the hottie in third period would love me!" _He cleared his throat. "They shouldn't be this. Whatever this is."

Ben had peed in Mary's hand, and Mary was slightly off camera getting paper towels. _"Don't worry about him, Shawn," _they could hear him saying. _"This is just something he does." _He slowly walked back to his chair with the mouse perched on his shoulder and his hand cupped tightly; he sure was careful not to spill any mouse pee. _"It's warm," _he mused as he soaked it up with the towels.

Shawn stared at the television with an amused smile, chortling under his breath. There was a bored look in his eyes, however. He was two hours in, and every minute of it had been just as inane as this one.

"Come on," said Gus. "This is a waste of your time."

"You've gotta come up with a better argument than that, man," said Shawn.

Gus couldn't. But watching Mary still made him uncomfortable, so he felt justified in marching over there and snatching the remote from Shawn's hands. He was just about to press the Stop button when Shawn spoke again.

"No one else showed up at the guy's funeral, Gus."

That was true. Apart from his mother, but as far as Shawn was concerned, parents didn't count (they had "no protocol," he said, because they weren't supposed to be alive for their kids' funerals, anyway). It was easy to forget that, underneath the creepy, Mary hadn't been more than a very lonely man. Gus looked at the screen, looked at him laughing as Ben crawled up his neck and scampered about in his hair, and felt a pang of guilt.

Begrudgingly, he sat down next to Shawn and put the remote on the end-table. "Fine," he said. "But I'm out of here as soon as Allison Cowley's demented-ass face shows up."

"Gus, don't be that cashier at Jamba Juice who always has a dried booger peeking out of her nose. The first thing I did when I dug these out was find the Allison tape and kill it dead. It's a million fathoms below the pier by now." Shawn propped himself up on his elbow. "Popcorn?"

"No thanks."

"_He's a healthy little guy," _Mary said, holding Ben close to his face. _"It seems impossible that his first owner was a serial killer. But Yang took excellent care of him." _His expression saddened. _"She really did."_

It was a sweet moment between a man and his pet. But that man was still wearing a rubber rain jacket indoors – maybe it kept mouse urine off of his clothes, but it was still no wonder no one had ever taken the guy seriously.

"I wish he wasn't wearing that stupid thing," said Gus, shaking his head in pity.

As if he could hear him, Mary got up and turned off his camera. The video switched to his next entry, and indeed, he was no longer wearing the rain jacket. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing he wasn't wearing.

Shawn and Gus screamed in horror. "That isn't what I meant!" said Gus, but no matter how he tried, it was not possible to look away from Mary Lightly, who was now shirtless and displaying a shockingly hairy chest.

"Dude! He's got a better sternum bush than Lassie," cried Shawn. He was actually rather impressed by the sand-blond rug; after all, who'd have expected Mary to have the testosterone?

Gus, on the other hand, was thoroughly disgusted. "That's not a bush," he responded. "That's a goddamn forest. Hasn't he ever heard of a razor?"

"That's it – I'm calling Lassie as soon as this is over. I need to taunt him with this forever." The longer Shawn looked at it, the more he laughed. That is, until he took a moment to actually notice the body language going on beneath all that hair. Mary looked positively deflated, slouching in his chair and staring at the floor. He removed his glasses, letting them dangle from his hand as he half-heartedly rubbed his eyes. But wait – Shawn noticed that his breathing was irregular and constricted. Was he just rubbing his eyes? Or was he wiping away tears?

"It's just hair, Gus. _Jeez._" Shawn hit Gus on the shoulder to make him stop the retching noises. "I'm pretty sure our friend Mary was way, _way _too sad to dress himself properly on –" He glanced at the date on the screen. "– March 4, 2010."

"Sad?" Gus looked at Shawn skeptically. "About what?"

"I don't know! Why don't we just watch it to find out?"

"Fine."

On the tape, Mary continued to mope silently for a while. He sighed a few times, replaced his glasses, and, eventually, found the strength to talk:

"_I'll be straight with you, Shawn. Today, I am hurting. It's the two-hundred-day anniversary of . . . well, I don't want to bother you with the specifics, and for the sake of her privacy, I really shouldn't. I still need to vent, though. So I will vent. Vaguely._

"_Have you ever been in love, Shawn?"_

Shawn and Gus both found themselves taken aback. Gus shot Shawn a look that said _I told you so, _at which Shawn just rolled his eyes.

"_Nope, no, I just heard myself say it. Has that beast Shawn Spencer ever been in love? You know he has, Mary, what are you saying? Okay, a better question would be this: Do you know that feeling, Shawn, when you discover that something you adore is a facade hiding something dark, something perverse? Like when the host of a children's television program admits to molesting his guests, or when a confectionary company introduces a chocolate flavor to a line of fruit-flavored hard candies. A part of you thinks you can ignore that darkness and go on loving that thing as what you first perceived it to be – after all, the traits, or the aspects that so enamored you in the first place don't just go away because of one little secret._

"_Of course, the rest of you knows things will never be okay again, but . . . It's been two-hundred days. You would think I'd have come to my senses, Shawn, but . . . But I still want to love her."_

Her?

That one little word made Shawn spit the popcorn kernel he'd been chewing on across the room; it struck the refrigerator. Gus grabbed the remote and paused the video before he and Shawn looked at each other with wide eyes. "He liked girls?"

"He liked girls!" echoed Shawn. "You know, of all the teams a person can bat for, that's the last one I'd expect Mary to join."

"I'm gonna need a minute to let this sink in," said Gus.

"Me too," said Shawn, who then stared at the wall for two seconds before exclaiming, "I'm cool with it! Movie time!" and reaching into Gus's hand to press Play on the remote.

"_This person . . . " _continued Mary, who had scooted his chair closer to the camera since he started the speech. _"She came into my life and my very being split. I didn't even notice it until recently, but what used to be my sense and pragmatism is just gone. I'm a mess of puerile impulses, because she _is_ my sense and pragmatism, and when she's not with me, I just don't make sense. I like to think I had a similar effect on her: I became her rebelliousness, leaving her feeling settled and . . . and dangerously calm. _

"_The point I'm trying to make, Shawn, is that we complemented each other. She complemented me, and ever since her secret came out and she was taken away from me, I have felt incomplete. And I don't blame her for that. I can't blame her._

"_And I can't shake the feeling that I'm being horribly selfish. I mean, our love was one of the better things in my life. It got me to leave my apartment, and to do things I never would have done alone. I had never even tried pizza before she made me. I felt comfortable telling her about myself, and she liked listening. She had her own stories, too, and... well, someone a little more rational might look back and think, 'Oh, those were all lies,' but I can't . . . _

"_I know I knew the true her."_

Mary's breath caught on those last few words, and he closed his eyes reflectively. There was a silence that went on for far too long as Shawn and Gus both turned an intrigued ear to the hum of the VCR and Mary's soft crying. It was all breath and no tears.

Gus couldn't help but wonder if "she" was the sheep in the lopsided picture frame behind Mary. Shawn noticed the queasy expression he had pointed at the picture and elbowed him in the ribs. "You need some Pepto for your sick mind, Gus," he joked quietly. "That _male _sheep was the subject of an earlier entry; it was his grandmother's. He keeps the picture to remember –"

"I know he's not talking about the sheep, Shawn," Gus lied.

Shawn opened his mouth to respond (and insert another piece of popcorn), but before he could, Mary spoke.

"_Dammit, I love her."_

It came suddenly and in such a whisper that they weren't even sure Mary had said it. But he had, and he repeated it: _"I love her. I can't help it." _The weak convulsions of his chest transformed from silent sobs to nostalgic laughter. _"Either the heavens are telling me that we were meant for each other or I need to be fitted for a straitjacket of my own, because no matter what, she will always be my angel. When she's not in my thoughts, she's in my dreams, and I relish every detail. I think about her and I see her smile, with her teeth so neat and white they could have been marble barricades. I can feel her hair, how her curls would embrace my fingers like boa constrictors when I ran my hands through it." _He was starting to gesticulate, flinging his hands around in vague imitations of the acts he described. He cupped his hands in front of his face like he was supporting someone's neck. _"I would kiss her, and as that kiss traveled, my name would fly from her mouth in the most alluring voice: Mary . . . " _he said, elongating the name and drawing out the consonants, which forced his mouth into a grin that would not break. _"That voice fit into my ears just as my muscles fit into hers. We were melded together by the bright red passion of synchronized heartbeats, and it wasn't long before the waves washed over us. . ."_

That was when Mary remembered he was on camera. _"Hello, Shawn. I'm still talking to you, aren't I?" _he said, his smile quavering. He seemed embarrassed, but as his audience was about to discover, it was not for the right reasons. _"I'm sorry, my prose goes purple when I speak to myself. That must have been difficult for you to follow. Just to clarify, when I talked about 'muscles,' that was a metonym for our genitals. Uh, her genitals and my genitals, not yours, obviously. And as an extension of that, 'melding together' refers to the act of intercourse, in the –" _

Gus scrambled for the remote and pressed the Pause button repeatedly. The video stopped on an unfortunate still of Mary motioning towards his crotch, but Gus was not about to press Play again and risk hearing something even more pornographic.

Shawn looked at Gus's ashen face and couldn't help but laugh. "Bet you're pretty glad he wasn't talking about the sheep now, huh, Gus?" he said.

Gus stood up in a huff. "Thanks for talking me into this," he said. "Now I'm mentally scarred."

"Why? Because Mary was getting laid?"

"At least when we thought he was in love with you, I didn't have to suffer these mental pictures. Think about it, Shawn. What sort of woman would even _want _to have sex with that guy? Not a pretty one, to be sure."

"He could have described it a little less graphically," Shawn conceded. "But don't you feel just a little happy for him? He _did _have someone at some point, and he got to have melty red heartbeat sex with her, and then she just couldn't go to his funeral for whatever reason." Shawn could feel his guilt regarding Mary start to dissipate. He lay down on the couch and tossed the rest of his popcorn into the air, catching a piece in his mouth; freedom felt good. "I'm gonna keep watching, if you want to leave."

Gus watched Shawn grasp blindly for the remote control and rolled his eyes at his friend. He did want to leave. To do what, he didn't know. Certainly not to throw up or curl up in a ball on his bed, like Shawn thought he would. He just needed a moment to think.

He marched towards the door, keeping his composure like a champ. He couldn't help but glance at the TV one more time as he left, however. _Chests should not be that hairy, _he thought, looking Mary's picture on the screen up and down.

He wasn't going to admit this to Shawn, but as he looked back, he realized that he kind of understood what Mary was talking about: discovering an unexpected side to someone you thought you knew could be devastating. Gus had always seen Mary as a lonely weirdo. But now, that was just one of several masks that Mary wore. He was a heterosexual. He knew how to cry. And Gus now felt the need to adjust his entire world view, just because this new information had come to light.

Shawn chuckled at Gus's expense. This was what happened to poor guys with no intuition: they got surprised by things. Shawn was never surprised. _I always suspected that good ol' Mary liked girls. The lady name and the limp wrists didn't fool me for a second, _he told himself.

"Come to think of it," he mused, "I always knew that he had a girlfriend. Or that he had had one. _He'd _had one?" He decided this was no time to worry about appropriate syntax.

Had this mysterious woman broken Mary's heart before or after Shawn first met him? Probably before. Although two-hundred days before March 4, 2010 seemed like it would come pretty close. Shawn knew that would drive him crazy. He finally grabbed the remote, but before he pressed Play, he forced himself to do something terrible: mental math.

"Thirty days has September, April . . . blah, blah, blah . . . except for February, the pointless month . . . holy _crap."_ Shawn sat up straight as the realization hit him.

Two-hundred days before March 4, 2010 was the exact same day that they had caught Yang. Either it had been an even more eventful day for Mary than Shawn had thought, or he had just unearthed a horrible secret that man was not meant to know.

It sort of made sense. They were both crazy, after all.

It wasn't exactly news that Yang had had genitals; her book had included an entire chapter on how many people she'd used them on. But _hers _and _his _together? Shawn was getting the mental pictures. They were worse than Allison Cowley shackled up in Mr. Yin's basement. They were inappropriate and uncalled for. They were not meant to be.

This changed _everything._

Shawn threw the remote control across the room and stood up, shaking. He snatched his jacket up off the floor and bolted outside, shouting, "Gus! Where are you going, buddy? I know why the girl wasn't at his funeral and I can't watch any more!"

Gus heard Shawn running and turned around, only to see his ever-carefree best friend spewing popcorn chunks over the pier. He couldn't help but laugh out loud; it was good to know that Shawn had a breaking point.

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**A/N: That may or may not have ended up a lot longer than it should have been.**

**Shawn and Gus's opinions of Yang/Mary, and Mary in general, are not representative of my own. At all. Obviously. When Gus asks what kind of woman would **_**ever**_** want to sleep with Mary, the unspoken answer is "Number1PixarFan." Mary is exactly the kind of nerdy weirdo that she would fall in love with. She made him be shirtless for the second half of the fic for no reason besides her own amusement. She has a serious problem but she's gonna stop talking about that for now.**

**I hope you liked it! Reviews are appreciated! **


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